It is time for Sisi, Abbas, Dahlan and Meshaal to meet
By Omar Shaban. The Middle East is in a phase of strategic formation. Hamas, Egypt, Fatah and the Palestinian Authority are each in crisis, however different — and when all are in crisis, alliance becomes unavoidable. The paper diagnoses the four parties' crises.
- Author
- Omar Shaban Ismail
- Date
- 2013-11-19
By: Omar Shaban
There is no doubt that the Middle East region is living through a stage of strategic formation. Hamas, Egypt, the Fatah movement, and the Palestinian Authority are in crisis, even if of different kinds. In application of the principle that says: when all are in crisis, there is no escape from alliance. This paper attempts to diagnose the aspects of the crisis for the four parties — Egypt, the Palestinian Authority, and the two movements Fatah and Hamas — and proposes re-establishing the alliance on the foundations of interest:
Egypt .. fighting terrorism in Sinai
The Sinai peninsula is witnessing a continuous Egyptian military campaign against the terrorist groups. With the change of regime in Egypt, the Egyptian security campaign in Sinai escalated, and with it also escalated the campaign of Egyptian accusations against Hamas and its members of entanglement with these groups, whether by support or coordination. That created a state of rampant hostility against Hamas and the Gaza Strip in the Egyptian media and society in general. Hamas categorically denies these accusations: the deputy head of Hamas's political bureau, Mousa Abu Marzouk, repeatedly denied any entanglement of Hamas in Egypt's events, and likewise did its prime minister, Mr Ismail Haniyeh, in his speech on Saturday 19 October, where he said: “We affirm our respect for Egypt and our commitment to our fixed policy of not interfering in the Egyptian affair at all, neither from near nor from far, not in Sinai and not in any place in Egypt.
In the face of that, Hamas can transform from a party hostile to the new Egyptian regime into an ally, and help the Egyptian army in achieving stability in Sinai — as Hamas enjoys a high capacity in this field, for it knows the region and the groups to a sufficient degree. It will be useful for Hamas to do that, because the relation with Egypt is more important by stages than its relation with those groups, especially as Hamas is in ideological disagreement with them, and stability in Sinai pours into its interest as well. There is a precedent in this field that can be built upon, which is the joint security committee between Hamas and Egyptian security, which was formed in September 2011 after the rise of the revolution of 25 January 2011 in Egypt and before President Morsi's arrival to power. This committee worked for a period that was not small, in a way that helped in controlling security in Sinai, and this is what Mr Haniyeh affirmed in his speech pointed to, by saying: “We have presented all we can, as a movement and as a government in Gaza, in order to respond to the needs and demands of the brothers in Egypt in a way that serves Egyptian national security. This prompts the issuing of statements by Egyptian experts on the necessity of Hamas restoring its relation with the new regime in Egypt.
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